Abstract:

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Four medium -scale reinforced concrete beams were constructed and tested to investigate the effectiveness of external poststrengthening with prestressed carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) plates. The various variables included the strengthening method and the amount of prestressing. The experiments consisted of one control beam, one nonprestressed CFRP-bonded beam, and two prestressed CFRP-bonded beams, all the beams were subjected to four-point bending tests. In comparison to the control beam and the nonprestressed CFRP-bonded beam, the cracking load, yield load, ultimate load and stiffness of the beams with bonded prestressed CFRP plates were increased. The failure mode of the prestressed CFRP-plated beams was not debonding, but concrete crushing. After the debonding of the CFRP plates, the behaviour of the bonded CFRP-plated beams changed to that of unbonded CFRP-plated beams due to the effect of the anchorage system. The ductility of the beams strengthened with CFRP plates having the anchorage system was considered high if the ductility index was above 3.